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Tuesday, May 10, 2016

Late budding bloodroot cluster down by the creek, and along the trail into the deep woods, the first white trillium of the season blooms in the shelter of a warm, mossy boulder. On the other side of the same boulder are the first columbine leaves and buds I have seen this year, but they still have a long way to go.

There is only one way to capture my favorite
springtime wildflowers, and that is to recline full length in the
rustling sun-warmed
leaves with camera and notebook in hand, eyelash to eyelash and nose to
nose
with some of the most beautiful and subtly elegant blooms ever to appear
anywhere on the planet.

Only at close quarters can one can really take in the shapes and colors and textures of a bloodroot colony blooming in its
native element, watch sunlight and leaflight journeying
across snowy trilliums, revel in flickering shadows flowing
over everything and making fluid patterns in their dancing.

Then along comes the wind. Within minutes of capturing a few images this weekend, the velvety petals had been blown from their moorings and were drifting
across the clearing in soft fluffy heaps like new snow. I was fortunate
in being there at just the right time and seeing the blooms before they were deconstructed by
the roistering elements of springtime.

There is something to be said for looking
at life and wild places from a slightly different angle once in a while.
When I rolled over and looked up at the sky through the budding maple
trees, the prospect was absolutely dazzling, and I felt like
an otter cavorting in the sunlight. All I needed was a river.

From the Work

through this life we pass,here for only seventeensyllables, three lines

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Wise Words

These pages, too, are nothing other than talking leaves—their insights stirred by the winds, their vitality reliant on periodic sunlight and on cool dark water seeping up from within the ground. Step into their shade. Listen close. Something other than the human mind is at play here.

David Abram, Becoming Animal

When we deliberately leave the safety of the shore of our lives, we surrender to a mystery beyond our intent.